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Nerdcore? Dementia? What’s the difference?

I have been seriously been thinking about starting another music podcast. One that would play Nerdcore music exclusively. I happen to mention this on twitter the other day, and found, much to my surprise, that a large number of my followers make no distinction between Nerdcore and Dementia Music. This is a problem. This is a big problem. And I am now here to educate you on what Nerdcore is and what makes it different from Dementia Music.

Nerdcore, or Nerdcore Hip Hop, is a sub-genre of hip hop that focuses on geek and nerd topics like video games, computers, science, science fiction, etc. Now note the key words in that last sentence “a sub-genre of hip hop”. That means that the songs in the Nerdcore genre are delivered in the form of Rap. The Rap/Hip Hop style and the topics are more or less what define a song as Nerdcore. There are Nerdcore artists that would argue that Nerdcore is a unique genre of its own, that it is not a sub-genre of hip hop, but that is up for debate. I tend to agree with calling it a sub-genre of hip hop but I am open to persuasion on this.

On the other hand, Dementia is basically novelty or comedy music. It is not limited to a particular style or set of topics. (I believe Doctor Demento coined the term Dementia back in the ’70s.) And Dementia has been around a lot longer than Nerdcore.

Now to be sure, there is crossover between then genres. Some Dementia artists use Rap and Hip Hop for their music or talk about geek/nerd topics. Some Nerdcore artists try to be funny or use humor in there songs (or rhymes). And there are serveral artists the straddle to fence between to the genres.